my favorite character

Ed note: Lest I give you the impression that we’ve been crying in our Mickey O’s the whole time we’ve been here, I thought I’d share some of my favorite moments from the past few days.

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There are two things in this world that my girl simply adores – carnival rides and characters. She’ll go running up to a guy in a nondescript bear suit hawking kitchen mops at a supermarket and hug him like her life depends on it and she’ll ride the caterpillar roller coaster at the county fair until someone insists that it’s time to go home.

That’s my girl. And in large part, it’s exactly why where we’re here.

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Like many kids, when Brooke sees the Disney characters, she goes straight in for the hug.

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And she hugs ..

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And hugs ..

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And hugs ..

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And hugs ..

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And hugs some more ..

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But unlike many other kids, MY little character is not done there. As a matter of fact, she’s just getting started.

You see, characters are meant to BE characters. And to Brooke, that means getting Tigger to bounce ..

(I couldn’t catch him mid-air, so you’ll have to take my word for it) ..

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And Quincy to dance ..

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And Mickey and Minnie to play follow the leader ..

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And Ring around the Rosy ..

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She got Donald to pretend to sleep ..

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And Eeyore to lose his tail. Again ..

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There’s one last photo. It is in fact, the piece de resistance. But I’ve decided that in the interest of protecting the not so innocent character involved, I have to resist the urge to share it.

Suffice to say that little Miss did what we previously thought was impossible. She got a character to make a noise. In fact, she got a particularly .. er .. ‘goofy’ dog to bark. He refused and refused and refused and then just as he was about to walk away, he stuck his nose right in her ear and woofed. The moment was utterly hilarious, deliciously Brooke and pure Disney magic.

As much as we’ve loved seeing the characters – and as you can see, we’ve made it our mission to see a LOT of them – there is no character I love more than the one that is in each and every one of the pictures above.

Yes, we’re at Disney World. And as hard as some moments can be here, the ones above prove it. It really is magic.

What beautiful photos. I’m following these posts carefully. We have a trip to Disney in October because my daughter loves characters and rides too. I’m learning from your wisdom on what to do and not to do. I hope the rest of your week goes as smoothly as possible.

This is why we go. Have you ever seen a ten year-old girl have a conversation with a princess? Asking her if she remembers our last visit 2 years ago? A princess who acts like this is totally normal and takes my girls hand and walks down the street with her like they have been best frineds their whole life? Purely magical and I can look past all the crowds and long lines and chaos because those moments of absolute joy are plastered in my memory forever.

So glad to see you’re enjoying yourselves more! Very cute pictures. =)

Also, I don’t know if you’re planning on leaving the Disney area, but Dino World is about half an hour away from where you are. While the dinos are very corny, it’s low-key and educational if the girls like dinosaurs at all.

I’m just sitting here teary-eyed for you, Jess. We took our little Aspie last year and the fantastic times far outweighed the meltdowns (although our biggest meltdown occured in the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse and we like to have never got him out of that tree)! I am thrilled Brooke got a character to bark–this is absolutely unheard of! SHE is the magical one.

The hug with Cinderella brought tears to my eyes- she captured the essence of hugging- full-on body contact, without overwhelming. I knew I liked Cinderella best of all! I used to know a Belle, and they are so well-trained to respect and how to show love to all kinds of kids. They even know when to “break” a rule to help a kid be happy. I left there, thinking that schools could learn a lot from Disney.

Love them – all of them. But I especially love the blurry one with Mickey and Minnie, where she is dancing. Magical, indeed. And I am not talking about the place or the characters, though I am sure they’re wonderful, too. Hope you all have a wonderful rest of the trip!

I lived in Orlando for almost 6 years. While I was attending the University of Central Florida, I landed a “marketing internship” at Disney (which was really, basically a work-study program). I was one of the fortunate ones who was deemed worthy of auditioning for the cast (plus I am 6’1″ and they were in need of my “size”). So, instead of working in a concession stand or worse like many of my counterparts, I worked as a “certain” character mentioned in the above post. It was long and tortuous work, but I’ll always remember the good moments (even if the only time I made a noise was when I was violently kicked in the shin several times/day)…

We just got back from a trip to Disneyland and Disney California. I was pretty nervous about how my little man would react to all of it. To my surpise he did wonderful my little dare devil wanted to get on the California Screamer but was not tall enough, everyone at both parks where wonderful and treated us great. Only problem I ran into was at the hotel he did not want to stay there he wanted to go home, after the first day at the parks that got a little easier.